PROMOTION:
Promotion sells a positive image of the commercial district and encourages consumers and investors to live, work, shop, play and invest in the Main Street district. By marketing a district's unique characteristics to residents, investors, business owners, and visitors, an effective promotional strategy forges a positive image through advertising, retail promotional activity, special events, and marketing campaigns carried out by local volunteers. These activities improve consumer and investor confidence in the district and encourage commercial activity and investment in the area.
There are three types of Downtown Promotional Activity:
Retail Promotions: These activities are designed to promote the goods and services offered by downtown businesses and to generate immediate retail sales.
Retail Sales – These promotions are typically discount or sales oriented, offering merchandise at a reduced price – for instance Sidewalk Sales.
Retail Events – Unlike retail sales, these events do not involve price markdowns or discounts. Instead, they promote aspects of retailing other than reduced prices, like convenience, service or variety. An Invited Hours promotion, in which regular customers of downtown businesses are invited to shop during a specific time period – maybe with wine & cheese or with an assigned sales clerk –, is an example of a retail event.
Special Events: These traffic-building events are meant to generate eventual, not immediate, retail sales for downtown businesses. These events are important components of downtown revitalization programs for several reasons:
Improve the downtown’s market penetration.
Help rebuild community interest and participation in downtown.
Create unique merchandising opportunities for downtown businesses.
Common Themes of Special Events Include:
Community Heritage
Social Occasions
Traditional Holidays
Include the following elements
Music • Food • Overlapping activities
Something for children
Something free
Image Building Promotion: Image building does not usually take the form of specific events, unlike retail and special events promotion. Instead, image-building promotion is an ongoing campaign designed to combat negative perceptions and build a positive image of downtown. Many factors contribute to a downtown’s image, including:
Its physical characteristics; buildings, streets, signs, window displays, etc.
The attitudes of downtown merchants and business people.
The variety of goods and services available.
The quality of promotional activities.
Uses of buildings in the downtown district.